


Ambiance

by quartile



Series: Acoustic, Electric [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Atmospheric, Fluff, M/M, Post-Retcon Meteor, awkward knights are awkward, davekat - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7983814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quartile/pseuds/quartile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey, so I wasn’t kidding about wanting to sample your voice.”</p><p>“What? Fuck, no. I’m not a performing ookbeast. And anyway, if I’m going to do the lullaby again, it needs to be about something. They’re not random noises I make while fondling my shame globes, they have meanings.”</p><p>“Really?” You start recording. “So, the low clicks mean what?”</p><p>(The sequel I wasn't planning to write. Have some fluff with your fluff.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ambiance

**Karkat: Find the guy who kissed you last night.**

“Hey.”

Dave looks up from the paper he’s scribbling on. “Hey,” he says. His slow smile is moonlight emerging from clouds. “You okay? You vanished on me.” He twirls his pencil between his fingers.

You steal a quick look around the common room. It’s early, just the two of you. “I’m okay,” you say, pulling up a chair. “Just went to my block for a while. I needed to think. It’s nothing you did,” you add. “I mean, it’s everything. That we. You know.”

Dave nods. “But you’re cool? With...?”

“Well, yeah,” you say. “What about you, are you...”

Dave taps the pencil eraser against his teeth. You notice the bite marks in the wood, and Dave’s gnawed fingernails. “It’s cool. I mean. I’m okay.” He laughs suddenly. “God, better than okay.” He shakes his head. “Fuck, this is like passing notes in junior high. ‘Do you like me? Circle yes or no.’ Teacher’s gonna separate us, make us write a five-page essay on the definition of awkward.”

“Oh, good. The senseless Strider references have heaved their carcasses out of the primordial sludge and are walking on four legs on the beach. You had me worried there.”

Dave rests his head in his hands. “The thing is, I do,” he says. He swallows. “I like you. I liked... all of it. Last night.

“I could use some time to think, too,” he continues. “I have less clue than Colonel Mustard in the stables with the nine iron. But you don’t have to leave, next time, Karkat. If there is a next time. Not to totally presume.”

Your blood pusher thuds and stutters. You say carefully, “I’d be okay with a next time.”

“Next time for what?” Terezi says, walking to the coffee machine. She’s wearing an oversized dragon hoodie and a huge grin. You shove your chair back so fast, it tips over and sends you sprawling.

“What the fuck, Terezi, how long have you been standing there?” 

“Don’t worry, I didn’t see anything,” she laughs. “Mmm, but it _smells_ like sticky-sweet double-strawberry jam. Now why might that be?”

“Dude, easy there.” Dave stands and extends his hand to you.

“I’m fine, I don’t need your help,” you snap without thinking, hauling yourself up. 

Dave takes a step back, shoving the proffered hand into a pocket. He picks up the chewed pencil and the paper. “Okay. Sorry. See you.” He ducks into the hallway, and a moment later the transportalizer bleats his departure.

Fuck. “No, I didn’t mean—Dave—wait.” Too late. You right the overturned chair and drop heavily into it. “Fucking brilliant, Vantas. Knight of bluh.”

Terezi wiggles a knob on the coffee machine. Her mug contains a mess of dark roast, floating coffee beans, and sugar cubes. She samples it with a lip-smacking slurp and exhales. “Ahh, I am ready to take on this mystery. What has crawled into your practical leggings and met its demise?”

“Terezi,” you warn, “stay out of it. It’s—I don’t know what yet, and the last fucking thing I need right now is speculation and prying from people whose sniff bulbs belong well and truly elsewhere.”

“So it is _something,_ ” says Terezi. “But what? Does the cherry coolkid seek tutoring in the quadrants, perhaps?”

“I said, drop it.” 

“Suit yourself,” she says. “But you can sit here and mope about your misstep with your I-don’t-know-what-yet, or you can take the risk, talk to him, and collect the evidence. After all,” she adds, “you don’t have all the time in the world.”

“God damn it,” you groan, and head to the transportalizer.

\--

**Karkat: Find him again.**

CG: HEY.  
CG: I’M SORRY. THAT WAS A SHITTY THING TO DO.  
CG: PAST ME IS A COMPLETE NOOKSTAIN.  
CG: BY WHICH I MEAN ALL-THE-TIME ME. THEY’RE ALL ME. I FUCKED UP.  
CG: DAVE?  
TG: its ok  
TG: too much too fast i get it  
CG: NO. IT ISN’T.  
TG: isnt ok or isnt too much  
CG: UGH. CAN I JUST TALK TO YOU? WHERE ARE YOU?  
TG: sure  
TG: pimps in the crib chillin  


Dave is sitting on the floor against the side of his bed, big headphones on. He’s sketching something. You settle on your knees next to him. After a moment, he uncovers one ear and reaches to turn down the volume.

“This isn’t the way I wanted this to go,” you begin. 

“Whatever, it’s fine,” he says.

“It’s not fine.” You move the headphones off his other ear. “I’m sorry. I fucked up. Terezi started asking nosy questions and I—panicked.”

Dave looks uneasy. “It’s no biggie. I mean, I get it, I just... wanted to help, I’m not good at it I guess, you didn’t want my help. It’s cool.”

You want to bonk yourself in the head a few times. “Dave, stop, it has nothing to do with you. It’s me and my finely calibrated ability to fuck everything up. I just,” you’re not even sure how to put it so you just charge forward, “I’m not ready to tell everyone about us. I wasn’t expecting her to show up and get in our business. I don’t even know what we are.” 

Dave says, “Can we just be... finding out? For a little while, anyway. We could just not put a label on this and see where it goes.”

Oh. He’s not pushing you away. “Okay.”

You both sit in silence for a few minutes.

Dave blurts, “But there’s definitely an ‘us,’ then?”

You lean hard against his side.

\--

 **Dave: Record.**

“Hey, so I wasn’t kidding about wanting to sample your voice.”

You and Karkat have been kicking around your room all afternoon. He’s played back a few of his favorite romcom scenes for you. You’ve gotten him to taste your alchemized apple juice. (For a hilarious moment, you were able to convince him that humans always dunk their Doritos in AJ before eating them, and he actually went for it. You imagine that this is how John feels all the time.)

“What? Fuck, no. I’m not a performing ookbeast.” He tips the last Doritos crumbs into his mouth.

“Hear me out. You probably don’t know what you sound like when you sing. I think you should know.”

“Probably because the din is so hideous, I could terrify the horrorterrors into completely ditching our game session for some less accursed layer of Paradox Space.”

“No, because it’s amazing, Karkat. You sounded amazing.” You poke at your phone, then hold it up to his face. “Let's have it, Yeezy.”

“Still not performing on demand for you. And anyway, if I’m going to do the lullaby again, it needs to be about something. They’re not random noises I make while fondling my shame globes, they have meanings.”

“Really?” You press record. “So, the low clicks mean what?”

He glares at you. “Fine. Listen closely. If it’s like this”—he rolls a smooth, buzzing wave from the back of his throat—“that means ‘the hive is secure.’ But if it’s more staccato, like this”—he demonstrates a choppy click-purr—“that means something more like ‘we will not go hungry.’”

“Not sure I got the difference,” you say. “Could you do it again?”

He sighs with mock exasperation. “Pay attention. It isn’t that complicated. This one is ‘security.’” The sound reminds you of cicadas sawing through summer heat.

“This one is ‘plenty.’” You’re starting to hear the difference. This one clicks like the roulette-wheel rattle of grasshoppers.

“What about the resonant one you did at the end?” you ask.

“Oh. That was. Um. That wasn't part of it. That was just... me.” He breathes deeply, then hums a deep note that lifts and falls like the sea. 

You can’t help it. You place your hand on his chest again. This was the sound you felt echoing in your bones that first time. The one you wanted to wear like armor.

He takes your hand and places it beneath his sweater, skin on skin.

Much later, you’ll remember you never stopped the recording, even after you started kissing him. The audio is muffled, but you can make out a few words at first, your voice as much as his. Then they stop sounding anything like words. Your belly floods with involuntary heat when you play it back later, headphones on, in private.

\--

**Dave: Scout.**

The space you find is a little inconvenient. You have to transportalize into the hub and then out to another corridor that turns into a shallow descending ramp. The corridor ends with one door that leads outside to the meteor’s surface, and near that is a second door, wider than average, with a window in it. Through it, you can see shelving fastened to concrete block walls. 

You try the handle and the door swings open. Sweet. The empty supply room is bigger than you first thought, extending past what you could see through the window. Room enough for a mattress or sleeping platform, your turntables, a small mixing deck, some speakers. 

You clap a couple of times, testing the acoustics. “Check one two. Muh ma ma maaah. I wanna hold ‘em like they do in Texas please.” Hmm. “Texas. Tek-sassss. _Tejas._ ” Some echo, harsh on the sibilant, but nothing a few spare blankets on the walls can’t fix.

The light, of course, comes from horrible fluorescent bulbs like every office space and interrogation room you’ve seen on TV. Like pretty much every other room in every other structure on the meteor.

But it’s private. And for the project you've been sketching diagrams for, it’s all the space you need. 

\--

**Karkat: Look for your snuggleplane.**

You stomp into the common room. “It’s hard enough,” you begin.

“That’s what she said,” says Dave. 

“It never gets old,” says Kanaya. 

“Not ever,” Rose says. “Invoke it though we may, it is the comeback of eternal hilarity, unsullied by the ravages of time.”

You’re surrounded by comedians. “New life goal for Strider: try not to be so predictable in your nookdouchery. As I was saying, it’s hard enough not having a proper recuperacoon to sleep in. It’s hard enough having to resort to a half-assed pile or, worse, a platform. But now my snuggleplane is gone.”

“Can you describe the missing snuggleplane?” says Dave.

“Did you retrace your steps?” suggests Rose.

“Did your snuggleplane ever express any... unusual interests? A sudden desire to travel?” says Terezi.

“Is there trouble at home? Have you and the snuggleplane been fighting? Any recent spats?” says Rose.

“No, by all means, let's continue being wigglers instead of taking Karkat seriously,” you groan, turning to leave.

“You could ask the Mayor. Maybe he needed it in Can Town,” Dave says.

“We just need the facts, Mr. Vantas, don’t get upset. It’s a routine part of our investigation,” says Terezi.

“It’ll probably be in the last place you look,” says Dave. “Start there.”

\--

**Dave: Bring in a backup singer.**

“What would you like me to say?” says Kanaya, settling in on the pillows in your refurbished supply room. She sips from a mug of water.

You set up your phone to record. “Just think of someone you’re moirails with. They’re having a rough time, a really pap-worthy kind of a day. Say whatever you’d normally say to them.”

“Dave,” says Kanaya sharply. “You should have told me you were making pale pornography. I would not have agreed to help you if I had known.”

“What?” you splutter. “No, no, it’s nothing like that, I’m not uploading it to a server in the Furthest Ring or anything. It’s for a good cause. It’s for Karkat. He's still having trouble sleeping.”

“Oh,” says Kanaya. She pauses. “It is still a rather intimate request, you know.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize. No can do?”

She purses her lips and thinks. “Can do. If it is to help Karkat, of course I will do it. But I need you to leave the room.” She makes a shooing gesture your way. You press record, set the phone on a pillow, and slip out. 

You can’t resist peeking through the small window in the door, though, and you’re not sure what to make of what you see. Kanaya has taken up one of the smaller pillows and is stroking it with the backs of her lithe fingers. She seems to be crooning at it, eyes closed. 

You turn away, count to 100, then tap on the door and enter. You stop the recording and help her up. She is blushing the faintest shade of jade green. 

“Thanks, Kanaya. I get that that was a weird thing to ask you.” You hand her the mug of water.

She brushes off her skirt. “It is certainly not something I ever expected to do in my lifetime. But, I suppose, on this meteor, nothing really can be, can it?”

\--

**Dave: Rehearse.**

You wedge the extra pillows you scrounged under one arm so you can get the door open. Karkat is going to flip out in the best way when he sees what you’ve done. It’s comfortable. It’s out of the way. He can set up the audio any way he likes and just ease into a soundscape of his own design. You’re picturing his reaction when you open the door. 

So it’s all you can do not to shout and decaptchalog your sword when a voice in the dark says, “Looks like your cuddle den is all about to be open for business soon, ain’t that so, shadesbro?

You shove your pounding heart down. “Sup, Gamzee.”

“I been meaning to get my discussion on with you,” Gamzee says, standing up from where he was crouching by your mixing equipment. “See, a motherfucker can sense when someone’s all up and making a move on his once and future palebro.” His horns nearly touch the low ceiling. “So I been saying a little prayer. A hope that you could set me straight. Reassure me that it ain’t like that with you and my invertebrother.”

You move as cautiously as a shoeless kid on slippery river rocks, but your head is calculating a mile a minute. He’s about two meters away. He’s not armed. Neither are you. His pupils are steady and his voice doesn’t have the addled tremor of sopor slime. Without face paint, his yellow-sclera eyes loom wide above gaunt gray cheekbones. They follow you as you step into the room, drop the pillows onto the mattress, and turn to face him. 

“Good to see you, man.” You are the picture of nonchalance. Got the nonchalance family vacation album right here, wife, kids, posing at Yellowstone, chill as fuck. “I’m just tweaking the acoustics in here. Want to help?” You kneel to check the connections on your speakers and mixing board. 

“And why exactly have you got your belief on that I would assist a motherfucker such as yourself?” 

You raise the volume on the first track. Ocean-like waves of white noise break against a digital shoreline. “Because you’re right. This space is for Karkat. I designed him a room that will help him fall asleep.”

Gamzee looks at the speakers. “This is just like the sounds by my hive. All splashy wavy water and shit. How do your chirp cubes know to be doing that?”

“Your turn.” You tap a knob on the board. “Go ahead, try that one.” Gamzee turns it, and a heartbeat begins to pulse beneath the crashing surf. You recorded yourself on the edge of sleep, several nights back. You tweak the settings to slow it down. “You kind of ghosted on him, bro. I thought you’d want to make it up to him.”

Gamzee sits down. “Karbro has been missing me?” 

You point out another knob on the sound board for Gamzee to adjust. This one is playing a loop of Karkat’s voice saying, “Shoosh, shooooosh,” from when he was trying to explain the difference between the pale and ashen quadrants. Gamzee tilts his head and you can’t help thinking of those videos of dogs hearing their master’s voice after a very long separation.

“He just hasn’t been his same shouty self without a moirail.” You’re laying it on thick and you know it. What you’re doing is the Foley artist’s equivalent of sweeping violins and angelic choirs. May no tear be un-jerked. “His well of curses has run dry. It’s Black Rock City without a porta-shower, and the alkaline dust is sucking the moisture off your soles. It’s not pretty.”

Gamzee sniffles. “Karbro’s got no moirail,” he says. He looks puzzled. “Then what all have I been having the observation of between you and him? I see the looks he gives you. I hear you talking all gentle and kindly. You can’t recite to me no wicked fiction about not cozying up all pale together.”

You shrug. You’ve had years to master the mask of indifference you’re wearing now. “Aw, you know us aliens. We don’t do the quadrant thing like you do. I’m not trying to be his moirail, or erase what you had.” _I_ am _trying to be whatever he’ll let me be,_ you think. _Anything at all. I just don’t know what that is._ You twist another volume knob. It’s the horizon note from Karkat’s lullaby. A bass click-growl that you captured for a scant few seconds. You set it on repeat and hope it’s enough.

“Karbro, Karbro.” Gamzee has sunk back into the pillows and is rocking slightly, in time with the heartbeat. “I never meant to be forsaking you. What a negligent motherfucker am I to let you fret so.”

“Hey, it’s cool, don’t beat yourself up,” you say. “You’re okay. He’s okay. But we should get you back to your block.” The soothing chorus pulses around you. You dismantle it, one track at a time, then stand up. “Come on, we’ll find Karkat and walk you there together. He’s probably deciding which romcom to watch again, or wondering why he can’t get his quadrants filled.” 

“Yeah, my poor Karbro always did want his quadrants properly complete.” He wipes his face with his shirt, sighs, and folds his long legs under himself to stand. 

Eventually you find Karkat in his room, and after a short discussion, the three of you walk back to Gamzee’s block. You step back as Karkat has a private word with Gamzee, then guides him into the block and shuts the door. 

“Huh,” says Karkat. “That was refreshingly not terror-inducing. Where did you say you found him?”

“This way,” you say. “I want to show you something.”

\--

**Dave: Press play.**

“You’re taking me on a date to a supply closet.”

“Shh, keep it on the low or everyone will want one.” You open the door, entering ahead of him to turn on one of the small lamps you liberated from the common room. The fluorescent bulbs overhead are long since removed and hidden away. Dim light reveals the pillows, the mattress, the hanging blankets that dampen the harsh acoustics of the concrete walls. You lead him down to the mattress and knee-walk to the stereo system, putting your headphones on.

"How the fuck did my snuggleplane get on the wall, Dave?"

"Just sit tight," you tell him. 

One by one, you layer tracks into a soundscape. The heartbeat. The lullaby loop. Kanaya’s ambling, wordless love song. A few notes of a tune you’ve been working on. The effect is lush, and Karkat is looking at you in bewilderment.

“What is all this?” He listens. “Is that... Kanaya? What am I listening to?” 

You scoot back to sit next to him. 

“It’s for you. It’s your ambient chamber. To help you relax. I made it. You can set it up and mix the tracks any way you like. There’s other sounds in there, you can play with it, see what helps...” _Come on, say something_.

Karkat is doing that thing where his knees are drawn up and he’s looking at his shoes. “Fuck.”

Fuck. “Is this not okay?” 

Karkat blinks a few times, hard, like he’s holding something in. “Just... why are you being so nice to me?”

 _Karkat, Karkat,_ you think. _I never had someone I wanted to do this for. This is the only gift I have to give._

You give him a quick side arm hug. “No clue. Here, I’ll show you how it works.”


End file.
